NDA Current Affairs Quiz: 12 October 2026

The correct answer is 27. Athletes of the three Services returned from the Asian Games in Japan with 27 medals, broken up as 6 gold, 11 silver and 10 bronze, which is the best the defence forces have ever managed at the event. Option A, 21, is the number of gold medals won by the whole Indian contingent, not the Services total. Option C, 37, is the number of bronze medals in India's overall tally, so it too belongs to the national figure and not to the Services. Option D, 85, is India's complete medal haul at these Games, of which the Services share worked out to 32 per cent. A candidate who keeps the two layers apart, the national count and the Services count, will not confuse these numbers. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh felicitated the medal winners in New Delhi on 12 October 2026.

The correct answer is Exercise Tarang Shakti-26. The seminar was held on 9 October 2026 at the Air Force Auditorium, Subroto Park, New Delhi, while this multinational flying exercise was under way, so the participating teams moved from flying sorties to a conceptual discussion on doctrine. The other three options name air exercises that are familiar in general studies but were not the setting for this seminar. The point of holding the seminar alongside the exercise was to carry fresh operational experience into debate: the theme was the central role of air power in the evolving battlespace, and representatives of partner air forces from every continent attended along with senior officers, academics, industry and the media. The organisers were the Centre for Aerospace Power and Strategic Studies and the Indian Air Force.

The correct answer is Himachal Pradesh, where the centre is coming up at Keylong, the administrative centre of the Lahaul and Spiti area. The Union Health Minister performed the Bhumi Pujan and laid the foundation stone there, and a former Chief Minister of the state as well as the Member of Parliament from Mandi spoke at the ceremony. Options A, C and D are all Himalayan states whose people the centre's findings are expected to help, along with Ladakh and Jammu and Kashmir, which is exactly why they make effective distractors: the benefit is spread across the Himalayan belt even though the institution itself sits in one state. The centre builds on a field station that the Indian Council of Medical Research set up at Keylong nearly a decade ago, and it will now become a permanent, year-round institution with modern laboratories and specialist staff.

The correct answer is South Africa. INS Tarkash, a frontline guided missile stealth frigate of the Indian Navy, has been sent on an overseas deployment to South Africa to join the ninth edition of the India-Brazil-South Africa Maritime Exercise. The host navy has fielded SAS Amatola, SAS King Sekhukhune I, SAS Adam Kok III and the submarine SAS Manthatisi for the drill. Option A, Brazil, is wrong: Brazil is one of the three participating countries and has sent BNS Barroso with an integral Lynx helicopter, but it is not hosting this edition. Option C, India, is wrong for the same reason; India has sent a ship abroad rather than received the other two fleets, and the Indian presence is INS Tarkash with a Chetak helicopter. Option D, Namibia, is wrong because Namibia has no part in the IBSAMAR series, which belongs to the India-Brazil-South Africa grouping alone.

The correct answer is Naib Subedar Neeru Dhanda. She finished the Games with two gold and one silver, and her win in the individual women's trap event made her the first Indian woman to take gold in that shooting event at the Asian Games. Option B, Havildar Sawan Barwal, is a male marathon runner whose silver came in a national record time and ended a long gap in that event, so he could not have competed in a women's event. Option C, Naib Subedar Gulveer Singh, won two silver and one bronze and is the first Indian man in track and field to take three individual medals at one edition of the Games. Option D, Naib Subedar Sarvesh Kushare, won his medal in the men's high jump. Only option A matches both the event and the first.

The correct answer is 2001. CAPSS was set up in that year as an autonomous research and analysis body working on national security, nuclear and aerospace questions, which is why the year 2026 marks its Silver Jubilee. A silver jubilee falls twenty-five years after founding, so the arithmetic itself rules out the other three options. Option A would make the body thirty-five years old in 2026, option C would make it fifteen, and option D only five, none of which fits a silver jubilee. Its Director General, Air Marshal Nagesh Kapoor (Retd.), delivered the welcome address at the seminar and spoke about the role of air power in contemporary conflicts and the part CAPSS plays in developing thinking on it.

The correct answer is the Indian Council of Medical Research and the Armed Forces Medical Services, a pairing meant to join scientific research capacity to the practical experience of personnel who work at extreme altitudes. AIIMS Bilaspur is the third institution involved, and its role is to study the health impact of high-altitude conditions on patients who come to the region. Option A is wrong because the Indian Air Force sent senior officers to the ceremony and the DGFMS is an Air Marshal, but the research partnership is with the medical services rather than with DRDO. Options C and D name councils and organisations that work on industrial research, agriculture and border roads, none of which is part of this arrangement. The research will support acclimatisation protocols, early detection and treatment for soldiers as well as care for local communities.

The correct answer is 2008. IBSAMAR has been held once in two years since that year, under the India-Brazil-South Africa framework, and has become a settled platform for joint training and for sharing operational practices among the three navies. Because the series runs on a two-year cycle from that starting point, the ninth edition falls in the current year, which is a useful cross-check for aspirants. Option A is wrong because the naval exercise series had not yet begun then. Option C is wrong because by that year the exercise was already several editions old; counting back from the ninth edition on a biennial cycle rules it out. Option D is also ruled out by the same arithmetic, since a start in that year could not produce nine editions by now. The grouping behind the exercise, IBSA, is the one formed by India, Brazil and South Africa.

The correct answer is Havildar Sawan Barwal. He took silver in the men's marathon in a national record time of 2:11:37, and that medal closed the long gap of 44 years since India had last stood on an Asian Games marathon podium. Option A, Naib Subedar Gulveer Singh, is also a track and field athlete, but his medals were two silver and one bronze, and his distinction is being the first Indian man in athletics with three individual medals at a single edition. Option B, Naib Subedar Sarvesh Kushare, won his medal in the men's high jump, an event where India had waited 56 years for a podium finish, so the gap is a different one. Option D, Naib Subedar Neeru Dhanda, is a shooter who won gold in the women's trap event.

The correct answer is Air Marshal Stephen Chappell, Chief of the Air Staff of the Royal Australian Air Force, who chaired the second session. That session treated air power as an instrument of national power and covered deterrence, coercion, escalation control and human capital development. Option A, Air Chief Marshal AP Singh, is the Chief of the Air Staff of the Indian Air Force, and his role at the seminar was the inaugural address. Option B, Air Chief Marshal VR Chaudhari, a former Chief of the Air Staff, chaired the first working session, which dealt with the transformation of air warfare in the 21st century and the shift from air superiority to battlespace control. Option C, Air Marshal Nagesh Kapoor, is the Director General of CAPSS and gave the welcome address.

The correct answer is drone-enabled medicine delivery, listed along with digital health and artificial intelligence as the emerging technologies the centre will examine for reaching remote and difficult terrain. These are practical choices for the Himalayan belt, where settlements can be cut off for months and a short distance on a map can take hours to travel. Options B, C and D describe transport or observation systems that have no part in this plan; weather balloons in particular sound plausible for a high-altitude station but are not what was announced. The wider mandate of the centre is to generate evidence on the health effects of low oxygen levels, extreme cold and changing climate, with research on acclimatisation, maternal and newborn health, child growth and nutrition, and disease patterns among Himalayan communities.

The correct answer is Stronger Together Towards a Shared Future in the Maritime Domain. This is the declared theme of the ninth edition of the India-Brazil-South Africa Maritime Exercise, which aims at collective maritime security and at preparing the three navies to deal with challenges at sea. The edition is significant for cooperation and security in the Indian Ocean Region. The other three options are plausible-sounding slogans of the kind used for naval events, but none of them is the theme of this exercise, and a candidate should match the theme to the edition number rather than to a general phrase about the sea. The drills in this edition span surface warfare, anti-air warfare, anti-submarine warfare, naval air operations, maritime interdiction, Visit Board Search and Seizure, anti-piracy operations, search and rescue, and damage control and firefighting.